


a history of touches

by trulyfine (ssstrychnine)



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-19
Updated: 2016-08-19
Packaged: 2018-08-09 16:42:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7809541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssstrychnine/pseuds/trulyfine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>kyungsoo has walls and baekhyun breaks them with the tips of his fingers</p>
            </blockquote>





	a history of touches

Kyungsoo will never forget the first time he and Baekhyun touch. There are formalities before, they shake hands and they train together and dancing always means touching, but the first time it’s deliberate is different. They’re a month from debut and Baekhyun is newer than all of them and trying to make up for it by being loud. Kyungsoo doesn’t think it’s working. He thinks it’s a smoke screen, a cloud of personality, and he wishes he could see the reality of him. Maybe it’s worse, Kyungsoo doesn’t care, he just wants to know.   
  
They’re in the practice rooms more than the dorms these days. Kyungsoo dreams of the way rubber shoes squeak on polished dance floors, when he gets to sleep at all. More often than not they’re practicing until the early hours of the morning and it’s not dreaming, it’s something in between; he’s sleeps his way through the choreography. He thinks he might hate dancing more than anything else on the planet, but it’s probably just because he’s been messing up more than usual. He’d been good at it before Baekhyun showed up. He’s distracting. He pulls all of the air out of the room, making it hard to concentrate.    
  
“Sit down,” says Jongin, gently, when Kyungsoo drops a step for the thousandth time that night.   
  
“I’m fine,” he mutters through gritted teeth, but then Joonmyeon steps in in that way that he does, a soft smile and no room for argument, and Kyungsoo retreats to the back of the room to watch. Baekhyun looks back at him, eyes wide, mouth turned down at the corners. Kyungsoo hugs his knees to his chest, fiddles with his shoelaces until his heart stops racing.    
  
Later, when they’re close to leaving, Baekhyun sits down next to him. Kyungsoo concentrates on his shoes, on the polished floor, on the squeak of rubber that is Jongin, still dancing.    
  
“Kyungsoo-ssi?” Baekhyun’s voice is quieter than Kyungsoo is used to, soft and questioning. When he doesn’t answer, Baekhyun reaches over, touches his cheek, the line of his jaw, tilts his face toward him. Kyungsoo flinches away and Baekhyun blinks and then blushes, passes a hand across his eyes.   
  
“Sorry,” he says, smiling crookedly. “Don’t be sad.”   
  
“Leave me alone,” sighs Kyungsoo, not angry, just tired. “I’ll be better tomorrow.”    
  
He remembers it later because the tips of Baekhyun’s fingers had been soft and because he can count on one hand the number of people who have touched him like that who aren’t family. And he knows that they sort of have to be close, it comes with the territory, and maybe Kyungsoo would expect it on stage, on camera, when they’re big enough to have fans that want them touching like that, but not quietly, in a practice room, at four in the morning. It leaves him a little unsettled, more than it should, but he shakes it loose and concentrates on his dancing and the next day he doesn’t miss a single step, not even with Baekhyun dancing next to him.   
  
There are lots of moments like this, across the crooked span of their relationship. They debut and it’s hard but it’s worth it. All of them get closer, the sort of close that has to come with what they do, because doing it with people you hate would be impossible. Baekhyun loses his smoke screen a little bit at a time and Kyungsoo watches it happen, curious to see how clear he becomes. He learns that he’s kind, witty, that he hits the edges of obnoxious sometimes, that he hits the edges of adorable. They lose their awkwardness around each other, Kyungsoo stops looking for him when they dance, because he knows.    
  
He gets more comfortable with the touching, too. A lot of it is for the camera, Baekhyun teasing, Kyungsoo threatening, but more of it is real. Baekhyun blushing, Kyungsoo laughing. Baekhyun tugging at pieces of Kyungsoo’s hair, Kyungsoo digging his index finger under Baekhyun’s ribs. They share a room in the dorms and sometimes, before they go to sleep, they talk about what their lives were like before Exo.   
  
“I always wanted to do this,” says Baekhyun, holding his hand up, fingers splayed, like he’s might catch a star indoors. “ _ Always _ .”   
  
“I wanted to be a teacher,” Kyungsoo smiles. “But I had a really bad teacher one year and changed my mind.”   
  
“Idol was second on the list?”   
  
“Kids don’t listen to me anyway.”   
  
But there’s still something about the way Kyungsoo feels when they touch that makes it impossible for him to take his walls down entirely. Like he’s standing on a knife blade, like everything might implode if he makes one wrong move. Baekhyun seems aware of it too, because he never pushes, he steps back when he gets close to hitting that invisible barrier. He looks away when the air between them gets heavy. He kicks at Kyungsoo’s shoe until Kyungsoo swipes at him with the flat of his palm and everything evens out again.   
  
There are still times when Kyungsoo thinks that Baekhyun has been put on this earth to ruin him. Like when he’s reading and someone pushes the book away from his face and it’s Baekhyun, pouting, demanding attention with the palm of his hand. Like when he’s sleeping and something pushes through his dreams and it’s Baekhyun, stumbling into their room at some strange hour, his voice rough with laughter and cracking as he tries to keep quiet but can’t. But he’s annoying in the same way that hot sand under his feet at the beach annoys him; it’s a necessary part of something better. Something  _ best _ .    
  
And then they get the Playboy choreography and everything changes. The song is slick and slow and deadly and the dance is made to match. It shouldn’t mean so much, a casual  hand draped over his shoulder, back to back, hip to hip, except that it isn’t casual at all. Baekhyun doesn’t know how to be casual about anything. Even in rehearsals his eyes are... and his mouth is... Kyungsoo is just trying to do his job and he’s being distracted by Byun Baekhyun all over again.    
  
“You’re not funny,” he tells him one day, voice low so only he can hear. They’re hitting tape marks, striding out across a matte black stage, the music quieter than it will be when it’s real, but loud still.    
  
“I’m hilarious,” says Baekhyun, and he reaches across the space between them, presses his palm to Kyungsoo’s chest. The tips of his fingers touch skin; his collarbones and his throat. Kyungsoo scowls, misses his mark and his line and has to scramble forward to catch up. Baekhyun laughs. Kyungsoo gives up on professionalism and kicks him in the shin, not hard, but enough that he squeaks and doesn’t play stupid for the rest of their practice. Enough that he doesn’t touch Kyungsoo again, unless he has to.   
  
Afterwards, he apologises, with his hands in his pockets, tugging at a fistful of his hair, and Kyungsoo shrugs.   
  
“Just... save it for the show,” he says, and Baekhyun smiles, cute and bright and impossible to resist. Kyungsoo itches to smooth his hair down, settle the flyaway pieces back into place, but he curls his hands into fists at his sides instead.   
  
Of course, Baekhyun never listens, and what starts in rehearsal bleeds out into their everyday too. Kyungsoo is sitting in the small living area of their dorms, feet curled up under him, trying to decide if he should do what everyone else is doing and catch sleep while he can. Baekhyun comes into the room looking exactly like he’s been sleeping for a thousand years already, his hair everywhere, his eyes half closed, his limbs heavy, sweat pants and a t-shirt half a size too small. He rolls his shoulders and the hem shifts up with the movement, exposing his stomach, and then falls down again. He shuffles across the room and Kyungsoo watches him and he doesn’t seem to have noticed him at all but then changes direction and wanders toward him instead of away.    
  
“Move,” he mumbles and Kyungsoo is so startled he does as he’s told, shifting closer to the arm of the couch. Baekhyun flops down next to him, resting his head on his shoulder, tucking his hand under his arm, and then he shuts his eyes and is asleep again. Kyungsoo doesn’t move. Part of him is outraged at the assumption that he would be alright being treated like a pillow but another part of him is glad for the warmth. Baekhyun runs hotter than almost anyone he knows, he thinks it’s something to do with an excess of energy, the way he seems to vibrate when he’s awake, a ball of electricity.    
  
“Stupid,” he tells Baekhyun’s hair. He wants to touch it again. He knows he washed it this morning, he heard him singing in the shower, and it looks soft and it shines, like it has sunshine caught in the ends. “Stupid,” he says again, and he gets up, letting Baekhyun fall, leaving the room to get some sleep of his own.    
  
It’s more than this, though. Baekhyun splinters Kyungsoo’s carefully built walls. He starts acting like they have a secret they’re keeping from the rest of the group. Like something has changed and only he and Kyungsoo know anything about it. He smiles at him a lot more than usual, and apparently with a very specific goal in mind. He bites his lower lip, he watches him through his eyelashes. Kyungsoo doesn’t know what any of it means. He ignores it, for the most part, except when Baekhyun touches him. A hand to his waist when they pass each other in the hallway, fingers curling around his wrist, a thumb pressed to his pulse point, resting his head against his shoulder. Kyungsoo keeps remembering the first time, Baekhyun’s hand at his jaw, gently turning his head toward him. He pushes him away, most times, but sometimes he forgets, sometimes muscle memory gets the better of him and he leans into the touch, presses the heels of their palms together, lines up their fingers... and then he realises what he’s doing and pushes him away a little harder.  _ Just muscle memory _ , he tells himself, though they have never touched like this before.   
  
During practice it gets worse. Baekhyun holds his hand longer than he’s supposed to, tickling the inside of his wrist, keeping him caught until Kyungsoo actively pulls away. He slides his hand down the back of Kyungsoo’s thigh, which isn’t part of the choreography at all, though Baekhyun acts like it is. When Kyungsoo walks toward him he grins, tongue between his teeth, and Kyungsoo tries not to smile back but he can’t help it. Baekhyun is infectious sometimes. His touch sets a fever under Kyungsoo’s skin.   
  
He tolerates it though, and he doesn’t quite know why. He likes being touched, that must be it. Every member of the group would deny it but he likes feeling comfortable enough with someone that he might touch him without a thought. He likes that he can do that with Baekhyun, even with walls, even with boundaries. He would like to touch him without them, put his hands in his hair, his hands on his waist. He likes the way his breath hitches up under his ribs sometimes, when Baekhyun’s wrist hangs over his shoulder, and he likes the way his cheeks feel warm as sunshine. He especially likes that Baekhyun thinks he’s doing something he shouldn’t, touching him like that, but he tries not to think about that too much.   
  
During their last practice before the tour starts, Baekhyun breaks their walls completely. It’s Playboy, because of course it’s Playboy, and it’s exactly like it always is, for the most part. Baekhyun is flirty and Kyungsoo is accommodating. They move together easily now, after weeks so much practice, it’s second nature to lean into his body as they move to the music. But then Baekhyun smiles, not like normal, not like he’s one step away from licking his lips, but soft and fond and wanting. Kyungsoo has time to think that his expression must be strange too, for Baekhyun to be looking at him like that, and then Baekhyun touches his face. It's just like the first time, his pal at his jaw, except this time he touches Kyungsoo's mouth, pressing the pad of his thumb to his lower lip. For a moment Kyungsoo can't see, can't think, can't  _ feel _ anything, and then everything rushes back and he’s drowning. He wants to push Baekhyun away, he wants to open his mouth, he doesn't know what he wants to do. The music is still playing. He settles on outrage.   
  
“What are you _ doing _ ?” he demands, just a little bit too late, loud enough that everyone stops what they’re doing and stares.   
  
“Nothing,” says Baekhyun, quietly, suddenly cowed, taking a step back, licking his lips, shutting his eyes. His lashes cast shadows across his cheekbones and Kyungsoo finds it hard to look away. He isn’t angry but his heart is beating fast.   
  
“Kyungsoo?” Joonmyeon asks, looking concerned. Baekhyun waves a hand, paints a smile across his face, though it falls at the edges. Kyungsoo can hardly catch his breath and he pushes away the thought that he’s done something wrong by making this public.  _ He _ hasn’t been doing anything. But he still sort of wants to pull Baekhyun back closer to him.   
  
“It’s fine,” he says, clearing his throat. “Baekhyunnie... he stepped on my foot.”   
  
“You would think it would be hard to do,” says Baekhyun, his smile turning real, falling back into himself again. “He’s so small.”   
  
“Be quiet, Baekhyun,” says Kyungsoo, and the strange mood is broken. He can feel the thumbprint left behind on his lips.   
  
He doesn’t seek Baekhyun out afterwards. He goes back to their room, half packed already for the tour, he puts headphones on. He doesn’t play any music but he sits at the head of his bed, resting his forehead on his knees, and he shuts his eyes and pretends he’s under water. The plastic casing of the headphones knocks against the wall and he can hear it in his bones, the scratching sound, like the wall is cracking under his weight. He hears Baekhyun come in, the hollow echo of the door opening and closing. He doesn’t open his eyes. He rubs his thumb and forefinger together, pretending like he’s touching someone else's skin and not his own.     
  
Baekhyun sits down next to him, squeezes into the space between Kyungsoo and the dressing table. It’s not a big bed, it’s not an easy fit. Baekhyun’s hip digs into his side and their knees knock together. Kyungsoo opens his eyes, takes off his headphones.   
  
“You better have a good reason for this,” he tells the worn denim at his knees.    
  
“I have a good reason for everything,” says Baekhyun, but he’s quieter than usual and his edges are blunted. He is leaning back against the wall and Kyungsoo can’t see him and he wants to turn around but he doesn’t think he can. He’s not sure what it is about Baekhyun but sometimes he’s so bright he’s hard to look at. Kyungsoo bites his lip against a retort, tosses his headphones down to the end of the bed for something to do with his hands.    
  
“So what happens now?” Kyungsoo asks him, when the silence gets too unnerving.    
  
“That’s up to you,” says Baekhyun. Kyungsoo can hear him smiling.   
  
“What do you mean?”   
  
“Playboy,” says Baekhyun, like it’s supposed to make everything clear. “It’s made me... I’m didn’t think... I shouldn’t have done all those things.”   
  
“What things?”    
  
“Pushed you like that.”   
  
Kyungsoo licks his lips. “Pushed me how?” he asks, pitching his voice low. There’s a pause and Kyungsoo can feel it when Baekhyun stops moving against his side, only noticeable because usually Baekhyun can’t sit still. He wonders if he has stopped breathing too. He wonders if his skin is burning like his is, if his throat is dry, if his palms are clammy, if he can’t stop licking his lips.    
  
“Like touching you,” says Baekhyun, after a long pause. His voice sounds close to cracking and Kyungsoo smiles.    
  
“ _ How _ ?” There is an even longer pause then. Kyungsoo feels like he can hear the neurons firing in Baekhyun’s head, figuring out the best way to respond. He doesn’t know what he wants him to say, not really. He doesn’t know what he’s doing at all, but Baekhyun can't know that.    
  
“Your hands,” he says, finally, his voice scarcely above a whisper. “I would trip, on purpose, to touch your hands or... or your shoulders, or your waist. I think you knew. I pushed your hair out of your eyes once and you were so... you didn’t hit me, so I did it again and you hit me then but it was worth it.”   
  
“Why?”   
  
“Because of the way you looked at me when I did it. Your eyes were... you looked soft. Softer. But you also kind of looked like you wanted to push me up against a wall and...” Kyungsoo can feel Baekhyun moving behind him, a shrug or a twist of his hands or his torso. He laughs, just air. The back of Kyungsoo’s neck prickles. He does want to push him up against a wall and... He bites his lip instead, concentrates on breathing.    
  
“Playboy was the easiest way for me to get close to you,” Baekhyun continues. “You would... you would hang your hands off your belt buckle and it... I couldn’t help it. Do you know what you looked like when I touched you? Your lips would part a little, like you were surprised, but then you would press them together again, like you were getting ready for a fight. You didn’t look angry, just determined. Your tongue... you would lick your lips, every time. I-I... notice these things about you.”   
  
“Since when?” Kyungsoo asks, and his voice  _ creaks _ . He wants to lean back, closer to Baekhyun. His heart is stumbling in his chest, hitting his ribs, warming his blood. His breath is coming quick and sharp. He digs his fingers into his shins instead.    
  
“Since always,” Baekhyun laughs. “I’m sorry.”    
  
Kyungsoo remembers meeting Baekhyun for the first time, before he touched him in the dance room, before Kyungsoo put up his walls. He had been smiling, bright and nervous and sparking like cut wire. He’d looked at Kyungsoo with his head tilted to one side and he'd licked his lips.   
  
“Is everyone as pretty as you?” he’d asked, grinning impudently, “I'm jealous.”   
  
Kyungsoo had introduced himself and left after that, unnerved by his confidence, though he shouldn't have been, considering the industry they were all in. It had been nothing, a few short words, cutely teasing. And now Baekhyun is on his bed, talking about the ways he likes to touch him. He takes a breath.   
  
“What else?” He asks, breaking up the remaining pieces of their carefully kept relationship. “How do you  _ want _ to touch me?”   
  
“Kyungsoo-”   
  
“ _ Baekhyun _ ,” Kyungsoo interrupts. “Tell me.” He finally leans back, next to Baekhyun, finally looks at him. His cheeks are pink and his eyes are bright and he’s chewing on his lower lip. He looks at Kyungsoo through his eyelashes. Kyungsoo tries to keep his expression from collapsing completely, falling into the rapid beat of his heart and the hot flush of his skin.    
  
“However you’ll let me,” says Baekhyun, in a rush. “I want...” He presses his lips together, sighs, lets all of his breath out, wriggles even closer. He rests his head on Kyungsoo’s shoulder. Kyungsoo misses the eye contact but the closeness stops him protesting. He stretches his arm around Baekhyun’s shoulders, pulls him closer still, so close he can feel his breath, warm against his collarbone.    
  
“ _ I want _ ,” Kyungsoo agrees, quietly.    
  
“Does this mean you won’t hit me anymore?”   
  
“No,” he smiles. “I have to keep up appearances.”   
  
They sit in silence for a long time. They move together, forced to by the close confines of the bed and the drawers. Kyungsoo can’t shift an inch without Baekhyun pushing back. They lie down eventually, because there’s more room that way, because they can face each other. Because it’s late. Baekhyun touches his mouth, like he had before, his thumb to Kyungsoo’s lower lip and then to his cupid’s bow and then he squishes his cheeks together and Kyungsoo laughs. Baekhyun kisses him then, like he’s taking the opportunity while Kyungsoo’s guard is down, but Kyungsoo doesn’t care. He been waiting for it. He pushes back, opens his mouth, takes Baekhyun’s lower lip between his teeth. Baekhyun’s hands are at his collar and Kyungsoo’s are at his jaw, his hair, pressing fingerprints into the base of his skull. Baekhyun makes a noise, a sigh or a moan or something in between. Baekhyun shivers under his hands. Kyungsoo kisses the corners of his mouth, the hollow of his throat, bites gently at his ear lobe. Baekhyun’s hands are under his t-shirt, sliding across his waist, dipping lower. Kyungsoo pulls away, shuffles up onto his knees, pushes Baekhyun back by the shoulders, down onto the pillow. He likes how he looks like that, lips pink and swollen, hair a mess, staring up at Kyungsoo like he’s waiting for anything he wants to give him. He leans down, kisses him, soft and sweet and gentle. When he pulls away Baekhyun tries to chase him but Kyungsoo keeps him in place, palms pressed to his chest.   
  
“I like you here,” he says. Baekhyun laughs, shuts his eyes, bites his lip. Then he pushes back with more strength than Kyungsoo’s expecting and he digs his fingers into Kyungsoo’s ribs until he squeaks and shoots backwards. He doesn’t know how it happens but he ends up sprawled across Baekhyun’s lap, breathing hard, tired from laughing and from kissing and from the way his heart is beating double time. It’s not a bad place to be.   
  
“Stop pretending like you’re bigger than me,” says Baekhyun, lips brushing the delicate skin of Kyungsoo’s ear.    
  
“Stop pretending you don’t like it,” Kyungsoo mutters and Baekhyun laughs again and kisses him once, twice, three times, his temple, his neck, his lips. They don’t go further than that, not then, because it’s late and they’re starting their tour the next day and neither of them are quite prepared for anything more, new as they are at being under each other’s skin. New, even though they’ve been pushing against this for a long time. Kyungsoo thinks, perhaps, that he won’t mind if he forgets the first time Baekhyun touched him. They have found new ways, better ways, to inhabit one another's space. A hand to his jaw, his cheek, will be replaced a thousand times by that and more and more and more. He thinks that Playboy will be interesting after this, in front of thousands of people. He thinks it will be fun. They fall asleep in Kyungsoo’s small bed and Kyungsoo dreams of the squeak of rubber on the polished wood of a dance floor and of Baekhyun, wrapped up in his arms.

**Author's Note:**

> more! even! the title comes from a bjork song, though i think it doesn't have the 'a'. it doesn't matter. i'm on tumblr @tabeorin and want to yell about lotto and everything like that so say hello maybe. thank you for reading !!


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